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LYTHAM PIER FIRE
PAVILION REDUCED TO A SKELETON IN THREE
HOURS.
EARLY-MORNING BLAZE : "LIKE A HUGE RED
ORANGE."
CARETAKER'S TIMELY DISCOVERY AND ESCAPE.
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ALL that remains of Lytham Pier Pavilion,
for over a quarter of a century a popular
home of the town's entertainments, is a mass
of tangled steelwork. Fire which broke out
early on Sunday morning consumed greedily
the wooden superstructure, leaving only a
skeleton frame twisted grotesquely as though
by a giant hand.
Flames
transformed the building into what one
spectator of an awesome scene described as a
"huge red orange," from which a steady
south-east wind carried sparks and blazing
fragments over the Green, creating the
illusion of a vast flock of golden birds.
The fire also bit downwards, eating through
the floors and depositing on the sands below
a charred accumulation of debris.
 Serious as was the outbreak in its effects,
it might have been attended by loss of life,
for Mr. John Evans, the attendant and
caretaker, who lived on the premises, had
just left his sleeping quarters to give the
alarm when they were enveloped in flame.
The cause of the fire will never be known,
though the most popular assumption is that
it originated from a dropped cigarette end.
Whether this as so or not, the consequences
were terrible, for the damage, which is
covered by insurance, amounts to thousands
of pounds. Official figures are not yet
available.
In view of the forlorn state of the
pavilion, there is cruel irony in the
notice, affixed to the entrance of the pier
cinema: "One Minute to Play." Then a few
hours before the fire occurred, a large
audience was laughing delightedly at the
manoeuvres of a comedy fire brigade in the
picture "Hot Stuff."
PRESS CUTTING FROM JANUARY 1928
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